As with Raven Software’s many releases that used id Software engines and pushed them to new limits, Strife was created by a studio working with id tech. Indeed, Rogue Entertainment were based in the same building as id and would later work on mission packs for Quake and its first sequel.

Strife is the feather in their cap though. It’s an FPS with elements of roleplay and stealth mashed into its frame, and the whole thing is running on the Doom engine. While there had been first-person roleplaying games of note before Strife’s 1996 release (look to Origin, creators of worlds), the game’s dialogue and stealth sections didn’t wholly detract from its Doom-laden run ‘n’ gun foundations.

24 Comments

They recently released it on GOG, but I haven’t had the time to try it yet, and I’ve never played it before. It seemed really cool though. Your description of the game is pretty much what I am hoping for, so that’s great to hear.

It’s been a long time since I enjoyed a modern FPS, Doom (2016) and Wolfenstein TNO included, but it’s been great to experience these older ones, that I never got to play when I was young.

Do you have any tips for getting started? This is the only major Doom engine game that I’ve yet to play (well, I never finished Hexen) and I generally like shooters from the period, but the gameplay here just seems really fiddly and unintuitive every time I try to get into it.

Oh hell yeah did I play Strive… the demo that is. Little kid-me was hooked by the tech-fantasy-rebellion-story-shooter-mashup. Unfortunately I never got around to experience the full game. I vaguely remember my mediocre PC just being able to handle the demo, but the full version of the game, which I obtained through some obscure schoolyard-warez-CD-swap, was too much. Later I switched to a Mac, so playing the classics for a long time was out of the question. Thus Strife remained a cool but brief part of my gaming childhood. Insta-bought the Veteran edition, but as so many games in my Steam library, it’s still waiting to receive a serious playing.

I made an account here just to comment on this game. Strife is easily the most criminally underrated game of the 90’s, if not one of the most underrated of all time. This was an incredible mix of FPS and RPG that had the best aspects of both. I’m so happy to see this game get another chance to gain the recognition it deserved 20 years ago. It is also a chance for me to finally finish the game as I kept hitting a bug that prevented me from completing it. Apparently it was a random bug that had a chance to show up, or not, but I got it 3 times in a row. Fairly late in the game, I finally gave up, but even with that giant misstep this one still holds a place in my heart. Definitely worth picking up for cheap on GOG.

It was an interesting game. The first half was fantastic. Like Doom, only you could talk to some of the monsters. It had a nice setting too. It fell apart in the final act IIRC, becoming a pretty straight up strafe ‘n shoot. There was one awesome set-piece battle towards the end I think that said. You and your rebel friends stormed a castle. Back in the day, that was impressive.

Even finished it!
Back then I used ZDoom, it’s a source mod for the Doom engine that gives you pretty much the original graphics with some modern features (such as being able to run it on anything but DOS and mouselook and stuff.)